United Airlines announced Wednesday that it is banning artificial intelligence agents from making flight reservations on behalf of travelers, citing security risks and the possibility that such actions violate federal rules.
Many consumers are turning to AI agents such as Meta’s muse And OpenAI points to perform tasks ranging from researching products and finding deals to making purchases.
To complete an airline reservation, an AI agent must access a customer’s personal information, including identifying information such as payment information. United has a problem with this, saying that “sharing account credentials with third-party personal AI assistants may expose sensitive information, and actions taken by these tools may result in unintended purchases, account changes, or the use of MileagePlus miles.”
The carrier also said that using an AI agent to, say, check in for a flight could violate federal regulations, including those requiring travelers to check their luggage in person for banned substances.
“Accordingly, United is taking steps to restrict access – directly within our digital platforms and indirectly through travel agencies and aggregators – to prohibit the use by unauthorized third-party AI agents or personal assistants,” said the airline, which is updating its reservations and ticketing policies to reflect the new rule.
United’s new policy suggests the company wants to maintain control of the customer reservation process, said Henry Harteveldt, an aviation analyst at Atmosphere Research Group.
“United says it doesn’t want to add another, potentially even more powerful, intermediary than the one it already faces in terms of Google search, price comparison metasearch sites and online travel agencies,” he told CBS News. “Flight searches cost airlines money, and United undoubtedly wants to avoid the expense associated with the rise of flight searches by AI bots.”
Other airlines are taking a different approach to the emergence of AI agents. For example, Southwest made its flight inventory visible to ChatGPT users, who can access the airline’s website through the AI app.
United fares will continue to be bookable through flight aggregators such as Kayak, Hopper and Google Flights, Harteveldt said, adding that “consumers should no longer have difficulty finding good fares on the airline.”
“But by blocking AI bots, United won’t make its fares easier to find either,” he said.
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